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Project February 3, 2023

How Māori Are Taking Their Tamariki Back

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The peak of Mount Aoraki, New Zealand’s highest mountain, obscured by morning fog. The mountain is named after the young boy of Māori legend who got stranded with his three brothers on their journey around the Earth and froze into the mountain’s form. Image by Kate Mabus. New Zealand, 2022.

Over the past three years Māori people in New Zealand have testified to the abuse and discrimination they have faced from the state child protection agency that has separated a disproportionate number of Māori tamariki [children] from their families. Now, as reports are being released and reforms proposed, they are putting up their own vision of welfare designed by Māori, for Māori.

This project examines how Māori communities are turning to their own child welfare models to restore agency and heal the intergenerational trauma caused by the state's separation of mothers and babies.

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